Warhammer Crime

[DukeLeto69]

Read Aberrant by Wraight yesterday. Very good. Was nice to revisit same lead character. Hope we get LOTS of shorts and novels about Augusto Zidarov!

 

Gonna read the Haley one next as the novel is imminent.

 

Then will dip in and out to potentially avoid the sameness some folks are saying.

 

Will say one thing on skin colour. Bloodlines made specific reference in at least one (but think it was two) places to people have skins of literally all colours (inc green & purple). It was in the posh/rich district. I took that as cosmetic enhancements.

 

However, I don’t think “race” is a thing in W40k. The “racism” is directed at mutants and abhumans. Standard humans are more or less a homogenous lump. Which anthropologically speaking 38k yrs from now is more likely as humans will evolve according to their physical environments - Wraight refers to that specifically in his short.

 

So the natural/standard skin colour of indigenous people of Alecto will be determined by the physical environment (not 21st century types).

[Taliesin]

QUick interview with Guy Haley on Flesh and Steel:

 

https://www.trackofwords.com/2020/09/20/rapid-fire-guy-haley-talks-flesh-and-steel/

[Scribe]

However, I don’t think “race” is a thing in W40k. The “racism” is directed at mutants and abhumans. Standard humans are more or less a homogenous lump. Which anthropologically speaking 38k yrs from now is more likely as humans will evolve according to their physical environments - Wraight refers to that specifically in his short.

 

So the natural/standard skin colour of indigenous people of Alecto will be determined by the physical environment (not 21st century types).

Man, do I ever appreciate that.

 

I loathe when extremely current things are injected into a setting so unfathomably removed from our current sensibilities and environment.

[Petitioner's City]

But that isn't about the racism in a fictional setting, that is misconstruing what is meant; calls for diversity in sci-fi & fantasy are about expanding who can be imagined in a given setting, removing the construction of and central focus of that world from the preserve of a given privileged our-world group. It about enabling all of ourselves to be envisioned in that setting - it is about representation of all people. It is also fulfilling the more reflective or even reflexive aspect of the sci-fi and fantasy genres, namely mirroring and reflecting on our present day. That's why it matters so much to these genres, ones that are continually explained as being inherently political and socially critical.

[Scribe]

40K is so wildly satirical that it removes that application for me.

This is a setting where skinning an entire cities population, and broadcasting it in real time to the rest of the planet is justified.

Where the sacrifice of a world, to halt the loss of 2 world's, is justified.

Where humans are processed into food.

Where genocide of the 'other' is not only acceptable, but encouraged to the point where the opposite view is heretical, and will end with the guilty either executed or worse, rendered into a mindless tool, or a raving drug injected lunatic.

Hell is real, and is the only destination, for everyone.

Should we have diversity input characters appearance? Without a doubt, thankfully the good authors cover that easily.

Should I read about race relations between people who somehow trace their roots to Albion, and some from Africa (or whatever 40K Terra thinks Africa was?)

Hell.no.

 

EDIT: Like here is my problem. 40K is a MASSIVE dystopia. It is intentionally the most degrading system for a modern human that should realistically crumble under its own weight. We already have issues with facists thinking 40K is pretty good and OK. I dont need to read some stupid article, that points out 40K's satire, misses the point, and says the game is just full of racists, and homophobes because some author decided he would have a go at the topics, and when applied to how 40K actually functions...realizes its a bad idea.

Edited September 24, 2020 by Scribe

[DukeLeto69]

But that isn't about the racism in a fictional setting, that is misconstruing what is meant; calls for diversity in sci-fi & fantasy are about expanding who can be imagined in a given setting, removing the construction of and central focus of that world from the preserve of a given privileged our-world group. It about enabling all of ourselves to be envisioned in that setting - it is about representation of all people. It is also fulfilling the more reflective or even reflexive aspect of the sci-fi and fantasy genres, namely mirroring and reflecting on our present day. That's why it matters so much to these genres, ones that are continually explained as being inherently political and socially critical.

I hear you but cannot fully agree. I think some authors working for BL have/do tackle real world issues, albeit in a minor way, but use in-universe proxies.

 

As I said, and based on what BL/GW I read, race isn’t a thing between humans in this setting. The persecution or hate that is apparent towards different races in our real world is represented by using the proxies of mutants and xenos and how they are treated.

 

Have now read 3 of the shorts. Protagonists are all male. Two are certainly middle aged. I have zero idea if they are white (and I was more aware of this due to the discussion in this thread).

 

Personally I think it is a shame we don’t have a few of these stories with female protagonists and I hope this is addressed going forward. Some of my favourite BL novels are the Calpurnia books...

 

But equally, based on what I have read, I don’t think sexism in 40k is as prevalent - Calpurnia & Severina Raine have total authority (with the odd dinosaur who gets called out/butt kicked).

 

While SFF can be used to “tackle” or shine a light on real world issues, does it mean it should always?

 

I want different protagonists for a sense of variety to the POV. I want to see how they think and handle a situation. However, generally I expect we will only get that when we get a wider variety of authors tackling WH Crime. For example, I would love to see what Harrison or Brooks could do with the crime genre.

[Preliminary Bombardment]

I don't think you can make any 100% definitive statements about human societies in the Imperium given it's a million worlds strong, other than life is probably terrible short and brutish and if you don't pay you imperial tithe you are in big trouble. You'll have societies where men are in charge, you'll have societies where women are in charge and everything in between. In terms of human on human racism/tension, I've only seen it referenced directly in the first Deathwatch novel where the human population was split between natives and a different population that had been imported from another planet as a labour force. It was mentioned only in passing and of course being 40k other things get worse in other ways. In the Gaunts Ghosts novels the Tanith were uncomfortable initially with women being in the Guard, the Verghast population on the other hand found it completely normal.

Edited September 24, 2020 by Preliminary Bombardment

[DukeLeto69]

I have finished No Good Men. I did what I said and avoided reading the seven stories back-to-back and just dipped in over the last fortnight when I fancied a read. I think that worked well for me.

 

I really enjoyed all seven stories. All were good. They didn’t feel too samey to me (but yes similar protagonists).

 

I would happily read more about all of these characters but I have to say the one that actually stood out to me and I enjoyed the most was Against the Grain by Nick Kyme. It was really good.

 

with a big nod / homage to Hannibal

 

I was one of those who initially didn’t like the idea that WH Crime was all set in one city / planet but having now read one novel and seven shorts I am totally sold on the approach as the world building has been superb.

 

Can’t wait to read Flesh and Steel but gonna break from Crime for next book to come back fresh.

Edited October 5, 2020 by DukeLeto69

[Felix Antipodes]

Also just finished No Good Men and really enjoyed all the stories. I got the feeling that all were written as try outs for their respective protagonists with Wraight and Haley winning the prize. Would be happy to read further stories continuing their respective settings.

Have to agree that Nick Kyme put out a great story. Probably one of the best I've read from him.

I wasn't sure if BL delving into the crime genre would work in the context of the W40K setting. Glad to see I was wrong.

More please!

[caladancid]

Also just finished No Good Men and really enjoyed all the stories. I got the feeling that all were written as try outs for their respective protagonists with Wraight and Haley winning the prize. Would be happy to read further stories continuing their respective settings.

Have to agree that Nick Kyme put out a great story. Probably one of the best I've read from him.

I wasn't sure if BL delving into the crime genre would work in the context of the W40K setting. Glad to see I was wrong.

More please!

 

Nick Kyme's contribution was really good.  Sometimes he can knock short stories out of the park.  

[DukeLeto69]

As I said on the Flesh & Steel thread, having read both novels and the anthology I think WH Crime has got off to a great start. I have been longing for these kind of stories for so long and these all really delivered.

 

I hope this crime line proves to be a success as I cannot wait for season 2.

 

Would also love them to do a background/source book with maps and stuff. Would lap that up!

 

Feeling kinda sad season 1 is over now :-( but soon The Reverie will be in my hands and season 2 of WH Horror so not all bad lol!

 

Right next read is Nightbleed by Fehervari.

[Petitioner's City]

I loved both Bloodlines and Flesh & Blood, very much looking for more to come.

 

Crime genre is of course a massive genre, dating back to the late 19th century at least. It has many forms and ideologically can serve many different functions - but of course Wraight and Haley et al are writing as contemporary crime writers, following Rankin et al, the brilliant range of crime films especially since the 60s, and of course the flourishing of antihero dramas of the last twenty years.

 

Having just finished the wonderful Mare of Easttown, I honestly just want something as domestic and smart and human and female and generational and lived as that - not crime for the purpose of the mystery, as such, but rather crime as fantastic character study of how people live and cope and hope. Watching it, one of the best examples of the HBO crime series of recent years, I kept hoping we could have that approach to a criminological show or book in WHC. Yes the show had its red herrings and it's mystery, but equally it just felt both wonderful as an evocation of place and evocation of people within it and evocation of people's hopes, aspirations and failures.

 

Of course the other thing I sometimes hope with WHC is the "portrait of a city" approach of another HBO production, namely David Simon's The Wire, stemming from the past experience of Simon and his collaborators (a mix of reporters, TV writers and novelists). Very different, of course, but equally one which could serve WHC well as a model. (The other thing I love about the Wire is there are about two times police use their weapons, both utter mistakes - I do hope BL use WHC to actually move away from the need for violence to be necessary components of their books).

 

The other "TV media" inspiration from the genre could of course be the Sopranos. Again the role of the domestic, the humour, the community and the sense of place perhaps being far more important than (or making far more meaningful) its brief moments of violence and crime mystery.

 

Just some thoughts - Mare has struck a wonderful nerve (like Big Little Lies' first season) about how the crime genre is changing for a wider reader/viewership - one I hope BL are thinking about

[DarkChaplain]

Good news for those who were hoping for more non-probator stories: The big novella "Bleedout" from Broken City is - so far - far removed from that sort of main character.

 

It's about an ex-guard medic down in the dredge, with a safe haven "clinic" as per gang agreements, who ends up with a troublesome patient.

I read the first ten-ish chapters of the story - and it's got a whooping 50+, albeit short ones - and Robert Rath makes it engaging for sure.

The novella makes up roughly 40% of the book, which explains the comparatively low number of stories all told.

[Taliesin]

edit

Edited August 15, 2021 by Taliesin

[Red_Shift]

Finished “Bleedout” this morning and it was good. I like the short and punchy chapters, it sounds ridiculous but I’ve got lots of distractions at home with young kids so being able to break it up into lots of small chunks makes it easier to read in snatches of free time. Also nice to see more underworld centred stories.

[DarkChaplain]

I fully concur. There's few things I like less about some of BL's authors and editors than leaving sheer endless chapters, often with shifting viewpoints, in a book. Or novellas not having any chapters at all, like has happened with a bunch of Nick Kyme offerings. I think C.L. Werner rarely has over 12 chapters for his 400 page novels, either.

 

Short chapters? Yeah, I got 5 minutes, I can read this now and find my place again later. The bus ride ain't long enough for a 30 page chapter, but 10? They'll do fine. With turn-based games, there's this whole "one more turn"-principle that makes people stay up well into the night because, well, it's just *one* more turn. The same happens with short chapters in this novella - sure, let's read one more chapter before sleep.

 

Even with audiobooks, I absolutely hate when there are chapters longer than an hour - the sweet spot for me is around 30 minutes, really. It's been especially exhausting with some Siege of Terra books, where 45-90 minute chapters would hop from one stressful battle scene to another. That loses my attention real quick.

 

The Warhammer Crime novels aren't like that. They have a more pleasant chapter progression. The longest chapter in either Bloodlines or Flesh and Steel has been a little over 40 minutes, with chapters rarely even breaking 30. Heck, 10 minute chapters are a thing! It allows for more frequent scene changes and makes the bottom-level investigations feel that much more dynamic to me as a reader.

 

Bleedout might be overdoing it a tiny bit, with some chapters being direct continuations of the previous, and I'm sure a bunch could be straight up combined to bring the number down by a good dozen. But honestly, I don't mind the way it is. It lets Rath skip non-vital information and actions and just keep trucking along (considering the novella features a taurox, pun intended). Stuff like putting a patient in the back of a vehicle in a hurry doesn't need to be told when the tension is already established and the characters' mindsets are already established.

 

More often than not with BL's usual output, I feel like a lot of page time is wasted on superfluous activities, which you generally see in most books anyway, without those really adding to the tension in a significant way. You just need this character to get from A to B and every step needs to be mentioned explicitly. I don't need that - especially when it comes to the battles.

 

In that regard, I find Bleedout and Crime in general to be very economical and to the point. They manage to keep me engaged in ongoing narratives and character arcs without feeling like they have waste of time scenes that solely exist to tick off the boxes required of a 40k novel. And when those action scenes do happen in Crime, they feel all the more relevant and personal.

[theSpirea]

Very happy to hear positive reactions, as always with Rath, I have high expectations.

 

I'm the exact opposite and I don't like when books are split into too many chapters for no reason, it distracts me. I started Bleedout and the chapters are 2 to 3 minutes long, that's absolute overkill. 50+ chapters in a novella? I would consider that a bit too much even for a full novel. The story better be worth it!

[Knockagh]

The long and short of it is….(boom boom)

 

I’m not much of a fan of long chapters. Most of my reading is done on coffee breaks and lunch time so a reasonable sized chapter that I can get into in a 15 to 25 minute period is appreciated. I’m enjoying novellas at the moment too, so long as they are well written.

One thing I would love to have more of, particularly given the trend for huge cast lists and jumping about to different perspectives is a list at the start of the characters in all books. It shouldn’t be a special feature it should be standard

[aa.logan]

Broken City is great- Bleedout and Old Rites especially so.a couple of the stories feel like they could be prequels to full novels, ending with a “we should do this again, sometime” which hopefully isn’t a false hope.

 

It’s bloody and grim in places- almost every story features plasma burns and the removal of eyes; no idea if this is an intentional theme, but it’s an interesting trend.

 

The inclusion of non-probator stories is a welcome move; while I fully understand why the first wave played it safe with wall-to-wall detective stories, I really like the different perspectives that this collection offers. The contents are diverse in style but each one is very firmly rooted in the 40k universe, some of them could almost be set on contemporary earth, but then a little detail brings one hurtling 40,000 years into the far future and onto a strange planet and I love that.

[Knockagh]

Bleedout Robert Rath….. I now see why you were debating short chapters….. these are a little too short. The story is great and well written but the chapter length I found a little annoying.

[DukeLeto69]

Bleedout Robert Rath….. I now see why you were debating short chapters….. these are a little too short. The story is great and well written but the chapter length I found a little annoying.

It’s an interesting creative decision for sure. I am really enjoying the story though.

[Petitioner's City]

I remember the most fascinatingly short chaptered book I ever read was Al Sarrantonio's Babylon 5 novel, Personal Agendas, which has mostly what felt like 2-4 page chapters 

 

 

It was a bit of a bizarre choice, it felt, although perhaps matching a 'heist' or thriller sensibility. Sarrantonio was a rather celebrated author, so it wasn't the decision of an inexperienced writer, as I thought when I was a teen. 

 

I guess we have conventions of what a chapter is, some of which is more about a reader than a writing choice, sometimes. I always like Terry Pratchett's decision to (mostly) not write in chapters as partly a versimilitudinous choice as well as act of punkish rebellion against these conventions:

 

 

What is it about the Discworld books that you don't write them in chapters?

 

Life doesn't happen in chapters -- at least, not regular ones. Nor do movies. Homer didn't write in chapters. I can see what their purpose is in children's books ("I'll read to the end of the chapter, and then you must go to sleep") but I'm blessed if I know what function they serve in books for adults.

[DukeLeto69]

Seems a bit disingenuous of Pratchett to say that though...

 

Chapters often (not always) serve as a function to enable time jumps, location changes or changes to character POV.

[aa.logan]

I think is Bleedout is mighty cinematic, Rath has spoken about it’s writing being influenced by John Woo films, Hard Boiled in particular- the short chapters felt a bit like an attempt to replicate jump cuts in a film

[aa.logan]

Sanction and Sin is *really* good.

 

The first story includes the line “In a city of amateur thugs, this guardswoman will fu*k you up” and a fantastic description of the effects of a meltagun and it just gets better from there.

 

There’s genuinely moving stories, nice twisted ones and so many different perspectives of civilian life. Hard to pick a specific story as a favourite, but the Siege of Ismyr really stands out and Confessions of Fire has the most potential for a follow-up novel.

 

It perhaps suffers from repeating some archetypes from earlier in the series- slumming gilded, ex-guardsfolk and probators- in the same way Horror was initially over-reliant on Planetary governors, but is consistently well written.

 

More please!